Wallace Berman in an abandoned building on the Speedway in Venice, California, ca. 1955–57. Photo: Charles Brittin. The Getty Research Institute, 2005.M.11

The Countdown to Pacific Standard Time has Begun!

Pacific Standard Time is a collaboration of more than 50 cultural institutions across Southern California coming together for the first time to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene. The celebration begins October 2011 and runs to April 2012.

Join artists Einar and Jamex de la Torre as they explore their approach to reinterpreting the classics of Mesoamerican sculpture to suit their current circumstance of living on both sides of the Mexican-American border. This program is presented in conjunction with the Obsidian Mirror-Travels exhibition.

Los Angeles-based documentary filmmaker and writer Jesse Lerner—whose films have been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum—discusses the persistence of ancient Mexican visual culture in the modern imagination and as a theme that runs through his work. This program is also presented in conjunction with the Obsidian Mirror-Travels exhibition.

This exhibition explores representations of Mexican archaeological objects and sites made from the Colonial era to the present. Featuring images of ancient Maya and Aztec ruins by archaeologist explorers such as John Lloyd Stephens, Desiré Charnay, and Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon, the exhibition showcases depictions of the Aztec Calendar Stone and other Mexican antiquities as well as panoramic visions of Mexico—all in the context of the Spanish conquest, the 19th-century French intervention in Mexico, and the lengthy presidency of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1910). Some of the works exhibited are accurate, while others are fanciful; each portrays a distinct vision of Mexico.

Excerpt from J. Paul Getty's diaries, March 30, 1952: "As may be gathered, I am no worshipper
of the shrine of the Renaissance except in painting. So
far as I am concerned, that was their only great gift. In
architecture, sculpture, [and] literature, the ancients greatly surpassed them." Getty Research Institute, 2010.IA.16

J. Paul Getty's Diaries 1938–1976

New Digitized Collection

These 29 handwritten notebooks (1938–46 and 1948–76) contain daily accounts of J. Paul Getty's travels, business dealings, and art acquisitions, and provide insights into his personality, politics, relationships, tastes, and values. The diaries illustrate Getty's relations with people in the art world and illuminate how he developed the collections of decorative arts, antiquities, paintings, and sculpture that evolved into the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Brought to Asia by Europeans in the early 1840s, photography was both a witness to the dramatic cultural changes taking place in China and a catalyst to further modernization. Employing both ink brush and camera, Chinese painters adapted the new medium, grafting it onto traditional aesthetic conventions. Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China includes images ranging from an 1859 portrait of a Chinese family made near Shanghai to glass slides of revolutionary soldiers in 1911 in Shanxi province. The exhibition features works by largely unknown Chinese photographers, hand-painted photographs, expansive panoramas, and rare gouache and oil paintings made for export.

Wu Man is the world's leading exponent of the pipa, a Chinese lute-like instrument. Her performance transcends musical genres and takes you on a journey through the centuries. This event is presented in partnership with the Da Camera Society of Mount Saint Mary's College and in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China.

Curators will give tours of the exhibition before and after each concert.
Tour times are: 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2:45 p.m., and 4:15 p.m.